Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Anderson Cooper anchored an expanded two hour edition of from the NYC studio. Anderson sat down earlier today to interview Hillary Clinton in Chappaqua, NY. The interview aired live in the 2pmET hour of CNN's Newsroom. (See below for the complete interview as it originally aired.) After re-airing his interview with Clinton (which lasted a little over 14 minutes), the next 60 minutes of AC360 was devoted to Wolf Blitzer's sit down interview with Donald Trump which aired on The Situation Room earlier today. Following the AC360/CNN "Trumpgasm," there was a 9 person panel discussing the interviews. The panel consisted of 2 Democrats and 7 Republicans so I'm sure you can figure out who received most of the discussion attention. Just when Bakari Sellers (Clinton supporter) was finally getting a chance to make a point, Anderson had to cut him off for time to go to commercial and ended the program with promoting the Friday night re-airing of CNN's Special Report "We Got Him" which aired Monday night.

Hillary Clinton Interview Part 1:

Hillary Clinton Interview Part 2:

At about 5 minutes into the Trump interview it became obvious that there was no news in the Trump interview. It was the same wandering, evasive answers, no substance interview he's given to CNN and multiple media outlets since day 1. Wolf asked no real follow-up questions, nor did he correct the multiple false statements Trump made throughout the hour.

Something that made us go hmm.... It seems Anderson interviewed Hillary in the same shirt he wore to his book signing in Washington, DC yesterday and apparently didn't feel the interview warranted a tie?

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I DON'T LIKE TO "PILE ON" ESPECIALLY WHEN I LIKE THE CANDIDATE, BUT WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS HILLARY WEARING? IT LOOKED AS THOUGH SHE WAS WEARING A SUIT OF ARMOR IN REPTILIAN VOGUE.WAS THAT SOMETHING SHE JUST HAPPENED TO DRAG OUT OF WARDROBE BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE WAS BEING LAUNDERED? AND WASN'T IT HOT?I BECAME FLUSHED JUST LOOKING AT HER.WHATEVER, HILLARY PLEASE DON'T WEAR THAT FOR YOUR NEXT DEBATE WITH DUMB DONALD. HE'LL SPEND THE ENTIRE NIGHT TALKING ABOUT YOUR TASTELESS TOP, AND FOR ONCE, HE'D BE RIGHT.

Wednesday's 360 started out well and then fell off a cliff. At the beginning "Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton Talk To CNN" was the on-screen title and surprisingly, Hillary was first. Anderson interviewed her and she talked about her campaign, "running on the issues" and the fact that the economy has been better under Democratic Presidents (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) rather than the Bushes. There was a clip of Wolf Blitzer's interview with Trump and Hillary pointed out what a negative bullying character he is, for example making fun of that disabled reporter and others who didn't deserve it. 360's first segment's are usually 13 to 15 minutes long. Today it was 9, making the Hillary interview (excluding the Trump clip) about 6 or 7 minutes.As ATA already stated, Hillary got about 14 minutes total time on 360 while Trump got an hour.

The second segment was part two of Hillary's interviews. Anderson asked Hillary if she was "ready" to run against Trump and Trump attacking her and Bill. I loved it when Hillary laughed at that and replied that she's been attacked for 25 years, can handle it and Trump is "blustering and bullying" because he can't run on the issues. At the end of the segment was a too-long clip from Blitzer's interview with Trump.

The 3rd segment was entirely Blitzer's interview with Trump.

The 4th was Blitzer's interview with Trump part two. I did catch Blitzer asking about foreign policy, Putin and the recent incident of Russian fighter jets streaking close by U.S. military ships. Trump said re: Putin, "I would tell him to never do that again." Oooh, such tough talk, I'm sure Putin would be quaking in his boots. Blitzer, of course, didn't followup that remark with a question like, "Is that it? Do you think that would make Putin quake in his boots?"

The 5th was Blitzer's interview with Trump part three.

I spent most of those segments watching Hayes.

The second hour started with Blitzer's interview with Trump part four. I watched Maddow who not only talked about the 2016 Presidential campaign but also Obama's visit to Flint MI and the Dept. of Justice stating North Carolina's LGBT bathroom law violates the federal Civil Rights Act.

@ CAPPY - loved this comment on yesterday's post about Blitzer's attitude while interviewing Trump, "IF HE HAD BEEN A CAT, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN PURRRING SO LOUDLY WE'D HEAR IT THROUGH OUR FLAT SCREENS."And your remark about the media being complicit in the rise of Trump. Hayes has also had a lot of Trump coverage but there's more critical and analytical pundits on his show. Maddow has been plainly not happy witih Trump, his campaign and now his being the "presumptive" nominee.I didn't even notice what Hillary was wearing. What did you think of Anderson's casual attire?

It annoyed me when AC interrupted Bakari Sellars and went to a commercial--I wanted to hear the point he was going to make. It's interesting how AC always makes darn sure Trumpette Kayleigh always gets more than enough time to make her usual excuses for Trump (and usually getting the last word).

Wolf Blitzer's interview proved Larry Wilmore's point about not asking pertinent follow up questions. Part of Trump's rise has a lot to do with the media fawning over him, allowing him to set the rules and being too afraid of losing access/ratings to confront him and demand specifics--this isn't true for all journalists who've dealt with him, but it has been the story for far too many.

I'm guessing AC would've rather been interviewing Trump instead of Hillary Clinton--AC kept asking her if she was concerned about taking on Trump--he just can't seem to grasp that she's got far better skills than those GOP clowns who Trump demolished in the primary and she made the point that they couldn't go after Trump as fully as she can because they basically agreed with much of what he stands for--she has a lot of advantages over Trump, but that's one of the biggest.

First of all, I would like to say thank you for posting all these clips and updates. I really appreciate it as I'm a big fan of Mr. Cooper but I often don't have time to watch his show in its entirety.

Second, I think you (the bloggers) would be doing this blog a great disservice by including commentary such as "Following the AC360/CNN 'Trumpgasm,' there was a 9 person panel discussing the interviews. The panel consisted of 2 Democrats and 7 Republicans so I'm sure you can figure out who received most of the discussion attention," to give one example of many. While you are certainly free to write whatever you want on your own blog, and there very well might have been a Republican bias on the panel, I think what has made ATA great in the past is that it's updated readers on Mr. Cooper's activities objectively, and allowed readers to make of it what they will on their own.

@JAANZA: THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT.I ALWAYS ENJOY YOUR RECAP BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND WATCHING KAY@LEIGH. WHEN SHE OPENS HER MOUTHIT IS LIKE THE BAD WITCH FROM OZ SPEAKING. ALL SHE NEEDS IS THE BROOM.I THINK WHAT AC WAS WEARING WAS INAPPROPRIATE FOR THE OCCASION, BUT HILLARY'S ATTIRE WAS WORSE. SO THEY'RE EVEN.@ARIES MOON: GOOD POINTS. I NOTICED THAT AC KEPT GOING BACK TO TRUMP, LIKE HE WAS THE ONLYISSUE AND AM VERY GLAD THE GOP IS GIVING TRUMP A HARD TIME.THEY KNOW HE'S JUST WHAT HILLARY SAID; " A LOOSE CANNON."

Point taken on the commentary of this post. ATA use to do running commentary of every AC360, but we've moved away from that in recent years. I guess some nights we just can't help ourselves. We'll try to refrain in the future.

@ATA TEAM: I MAY BE IN THE MINORITY, BUT I LIKE YOUR COMMENTARIES. WHAT MAKES THIS BLOG INTERESTING AND ENDURING, IS THAT IT IS OPEN TO THE OPINIONS OF POSTERS AND BLOGGERS.THIS IS GOING TO BE AN IMPORTANT ELECTION, AND IF THE MEDIA IS TO BE TAKEN TO TASK FOR, LACK OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM AND VETTING, AS PRESIDENT OBAMA POINTED OUT DURING THE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER, THANIT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED BY EVERYBODY, AND THE MEDIA, LAST TIME I LOOKED, INCLUDES ANDERSON COOPER, WHO IS AT TIMES, NOT THE MOST OBJECTIVE PERSON TO INTERVIEW AN IGNORANT PERSONALITY,AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, FOR THE GOP, DONALD J. TRUMP.WE NEED YOUR INSIGHT AND INPUT AND APPRECIATE IT.

I agree with everything anon 11:48 said about the ATA commentaries--I realized ATA made the decision to end that aspect of the blog a while back but I was hopeful that the commentaries were making a gradual return--one of the things I've enjoyed most over the last couple of months or so were the insightful and on-target points made in the commentaries but I will respect whatever ATA chooses to do.